Tag Archives: Bible

Blog Update: Bible Studies Added

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Hello friends and followers!

If you haven’t heard, I recently added a new page to my blog called “Bible Studies.” Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to write a few Bible studies and devotionals for high schoolers and adults. I am beginning to post some of these on this page for you to download and print off. Feel free to share these with others or use them to lead others if you already teach a Bible study. I hope these can be helpful to you.

I wanted to point out one in particular to you called “Intimacy with God.” I have often been asked about what it takes to cultivate true intimacy with God beyond just daily religious activities. I created a 3 day devotional in response to this common inquiry because I feel it is so vital to have a living, moving, active relationship with God that is tangible and felt. This devotional goes through 3 basic approaches that I operate in on a daily basis that bring me into real intimacy with God.

Here is a preview of this devotional. You can download the entire thing on the Bible Studies page.

Say that I decided to sit with you at lunch every day because I wanted to get to know you more. I immediately start giving you an in depth account of my day so far. I talk through the entire lunchtime and as soon as the bell rings, I jump up and say, “Great talking to you! See you tomorrow!” and leave. I begin to do the same thing every day. Do you think I will really get to know who you are? Of course not! I need to hear from you to get to know you.

In the same way, we need to practice listening to God through our day, and not just talking to Him all the time. But how do you actually do that? Let me share a story with you that I think will help:

There was a guy named Tim who went to high school with me. We weren’t friends or even acquaintances. I simply knew what he looked like. I never really saw him at school; once in a while I’d see him in line in the cafeteria or in the hallway. Then one year, I had a class with him and got to know him a little better. Within a few months, I had developed a full-blown crush on him. I thought about him all the time, and looked for him everywhere I went. All of the sudden, I saw him all the time! In the hallways, after school in the parking lot, and at lunch. I soon learned where his locker was, who his friends were and knew which halls he took to get to third period.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this same phenomenon before. It wasn’t that Tim wasn’t around before. He was always there. I was just too caught up in my own conversations to notice him. He was really still a stranger to me so when he passed by, I didn’t notice. But once I had a crush on him, I began to look for him. I always had my eye out for him. Through every conversation with friends, my eyes would be darting around the hallway just to catch a glimpse of him.

In the same way, God is all around us, trying to speak to us. But so often, we rarely hear because we are too caught up in our day-to-day activities. We aren’t looking for Him and listening to Him. But when we begin looking for Him and keeping our eye out for Him, He shows up all over the place! We need to be excited and expect Him to show up and speak to us, just like I was always expecting Tim to come around the corner.

An Unexpected Struggle Against Pride

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Well it’s been 4 months since my last blog post! And as I expected, God had a lot to teach me in this hiatus from writing and none of it has been what I expected. For those of you who have prayed for me and sent encouraging messages: Thank you!!


Just before this break from writing, I had been asking God to grant me humility. I am very aware of my struggle with pride and I feel that it is a stronghold in my life. Pride is very subtle and can take many different forms that we can’t see right away, so I felt very helpless in the battle against this sin and had been regularly asking for God to bring a new level of liberation from it. It was soon after I began praying for this that I began to sense I needed to take a break from writing.


As I mentioned in my last post, I also felt that this season would be full of temptation as well. And sure enough it was. There were numerous occasions where I was presented with a clear choice to walk in the Spirit or walk in the flesh. For example, there had been a miscommunication between Jimmy and I and it genuinely inconvenienced me. But I knew it was a complete accident and unintentional. He had been so sweet throughout our conversation about it and was headed home. I remember hanging up the phone and thinking, “I can respond in grace to my husband and be forgiving or respond in entitlement to what I feel like I deserve.” And without feeling like I could do any differently, I chose the way of entitlement.


This happened numerous times where I chose to be selfish, unforgiving, mean and focused on “what I deserve.”. And after each incident I felt totally bewildered at my actions! “How could I act this way? I know how to be a Christian! I’ve been walking with Jesus for years! This isn’t like me! What is wrong with me?!”


And boom. There it is… my pride surfaced. I had begun thinking way too highly of myself, assuming that when temptation comes that I know how to be a “good enough Christian” to get through it on my own. I had traded total dependence on God for self-sufficiency, which is just another form of pride.


In the midst of wrestling through all these things and processing them (which happened over a period of weeks), Jimmy was gracious to watch Lively for a few hours so I could have some dedicated time alone with God outside the house. While I was away, I decided to read almost the entire book of Romans and write down everything it had to say about me as a sinner in need of grace. It was unbelievably refreshing to read through these basic doctrines of the Christian faith: If I could gain my right standing with God through my own efforts, then faith is made void (Rom 4:14), righteousness is only found as a gift from God by faith (Rom 3:21-23), I am united with Christ in His death and am dead to sin and united with Him in His resurrection and have newness of life to walk in (Rom 6:4-7).


The more I read, the more aware I became of how incorrect my way of thinking had been. I had been looking to my own efforts, my own knowledge, my own “years of experience” as a Christian to help me in my fight against sin. Ironically, in thinking I am an experienced Christian, I forgot the very foundations of my own faith: that it is never through trying to keep the law that I find victory, but only through trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus! We are not just saved by faith alone, we live by faith alone.


I have known that I tend to try and be good enough on my own throughout my day, but this was the first time I have associated that with pride. The reason I try to live life in my own efforts is that I think way too highly of myself. I need to have a sense of hopelessness in my own abilities apart from Christ which will naturally lead me to a greater level of dependence on Christ, which is the true key to success. Jesus Himself said in John 15, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”


Unfortunately, I think my years growing up in church and struggling with very little outward sin have contributed to this deep root of pride in my life. You see the same struggle in the religious leaders in Jesus day, the Pharisees. Confident in their own ability to obey the law, they could never see their need for Jesus. While I know there is still much to do in the struggle against pride in my life, God has significantly uprooted this sin during these past few months. How grateful I am for an answer to my prayers!


There have been many other significant things going on during these months. My desire and passion for writing has been increasing and I feel like God is giving me more inspiration than ever. There have also been some very surprising topics that God has brought to my attention that I believe He wants me to write about and deal with on my blog. And I must admit I am slightly intimidated by it. But I trust His leading in this. To top it all off, I found out that I am pregnant in December! We will be having our second baby this coming August. What an eventful few months it has been.


Thank you again for your patience during my season off and I have many new blogs coming soon!

Becoming a Jesus-Follower: My Testimony

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My first encounter with God was in a pew at church when I was 8 years old. Every sunday, our pastor would end the service by inviting people to come to the front of the sanctuary to pray to receive salvation. And inevitably, every sunday I would tell myself I was going to go down to the front. I didn’t know what salvation meant or what would happen when I got there, I just knew that I needed to go down. I needed something that they were offering down there, whatever it was. But even as an 8 year old, I was afraid of what people, including my parents, would think. After much debating within myself, I never went.

A couple years later I found myself at our church’s “Preteen Camp.” As I began to meet other church kids, I started to learn the “spiritual language” better. I realized that the cool thing to do was to “get saved.” And one “got saved” by walking down the aisle at the end of the service and praying a prayer with a counselor. (The prayer only worked if you cried while you prayed it though.) So naturally, I decided I would get saved while I was at preteen camp. My new bunkmate Allison was going to get saved too since we were the only ones in our cabin who weren’t saved yet.

That night, we walked down the aisle as planned and found ourselves sitting with a camp counselor. Everything was going smoothly until we started praying. I couldn’t get myself to cry! I began thinking about my dog dying and other sad things to try and muster up a few tears without much luck. But I was reassured by my counselor that now I was saved and I should call my parents to share the good news! I was a different person now, she assured me. Funny, I didn’t feel any different.

I honestly didn’t think much about God for the next year or two. Now that I was “saved”, I assumed there wasn’t anything left to figure out or work through. But that all changed one night in 6th grade. Alone in my bedroom, I randomly decided to read my Bible. I don’t remember what I read, but whatever it was actually applied to my little junior high life! I remember feeling like God was speaking right to me! From then on, I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough of my Bible! I was became very excited about Sunday school and wanted to learn as much as I could about this God and His Word.

Somewhere during the process of getting to know God through His Word, I had the clarity to look back at my “getting saved” experience and realize it wasn’t real. After all, I hadn’t even been thinking about what I was praying and definitely didn’t understand what it meant. This realization threw me into a season of doubting. I began to pray “the sinner’s prayer” every night, sometimes in tears, sometimes without any emotion. I was looking for any assurance of salvation I could get because all I wanted was to be with God forever.

It was again through the Bible that God spoke to me. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9 When I first read this verse you would have thought I had just found the most expensive jewel! I was thrilled and treasured it in my heart. I would literally walk myself through the verse and confess out loud “Jesus is Lord.” Then I would ask myself if I really believed that God raised Him from the dead. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided I did believe this. So then, according to the Bible, I was saved! I wrote this verse on notecards and put it in my locker, in my purse, on my mirror, wherever I could to help myself remember that I was indeed saved!

With this cleared up, I hit the ground running! I could not get enough of God! I longed to talk about Him with whoever would listen and was eager for any Bible teaching I could get. Every new verse I read was like food to my hungry soul. My Bible quickly became full of colors as I highlighted practically everything because it was just so good! Each year I grew closer to Him and my appetite to know Him also grew. Jesus became my favorite subject, my all-encompassing obsession, my hobby, my love, my everything. My sole occupation became to know Him more and nothing else.

The more familiar I became with the Bible, the more my understanding of salvation also grew. I began to understand how serious my sin was to God, even the small things. So serious in fact, that He could not even be near me because His holiness, justice, and goodness is so great. It was for that reason that He had to send Jesus, His son, to take my place. There was no other way. Jesus was perfect and offered me His righteousness in place for my sin so that I could know God! And because He took my sin, He had to die on the cross as payment. But He rose from the dead and defeated hell and death and has given me new life through His victory! I could know God and be saved by choosing in my heart to trust in Jesus as my everything: my way to know God, my freedom from sin and hell, my way to be righteous, my way to know truth, my everything. It is through faith in Jesus that my salvation comes, not some magic prayer. I could say “the sinner’s prayer” a thousand times, but that didn’t save me. It was when my heart had no where to turn but Jesus that I found salvation.

Though this overarching longing for more of Him has been constant, that doesn’t mean that every season of my life has been easy or joyful. There have been seasons of deep sorrow where God has been silent and His presence less felt. There have been seasons of discipline where God has exposed sin in my life and sanctified me through trials and hardship. There have been many ups and downs, but one thing remains the same: I long to know God more and I can’t get enough of His Word!

Oh how I love Jesus. How my heart longs for more and more of Him. And how I love the Bible, the very Word of God through which He continually reveals Himself to me. Every year of my life, my appetite to know Him increases. And every year, I become more and more aware of the depth of my sin and my need for Him. He is truly my everything.

The Influence of a Woman

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Before I get into my topic for today, I wanted to give you a brief update on my blog.  Because I think it is incredibly important to be purposeful in everything you do, I recently wrote about the purpose of my writing and this blog.  You can check it out here: “No Apologies.”  In that post I had asked for any topic suggestions or questions that you had for me.  After reading through the responses I received, I’ve decided to write about some of those things in the coming weeks.  Here are some posts to be on the look out for:

  • Becoming a Jesus-Follower: My testimony
  • A Day in the Life: My life being married to a recording artist
  • The Sabbath: The forgotten command
  • Sharing Your Faith: How to live a lifestyle of evangelism
  • How to Encourage Others Effectively
  • Dating & Marriage: The purpose of romance in the believer’s life
For today however, I wanted to write about the powerful influence of a woman.  I am currently reading through 2 Chronicles and am greatly enjoying it!  I have learned so much through studying the history of the Israelite people in Kings and Chronicles and strongly encourage you to read straight through these books if you never have. (This is actually my first time to read straight through them!)


Chapter 21 describes the reign of King Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, grandson of Asa.  Jehoshaphat, though not perfect in his reign, was known for how he sought after the Lord.  He was humble and trusted in God in moments of adversity.  And Asa, his grandfather was also a man who sought after the Lord and trusted God in hard times.  With such a rich spiritual heritage, I expected Jehoram to follow in their footsteps.  But to my surprise, this chapter starts out with Jehoram killing all his brothers as soon as he became king.  It doesn’t even give a reason why he did this.  He also led the people of Judah astray by enticing them to worship other gods (v. 11).  So what happened to Jehoram?  How did a guy with such a great start to life turn out so bad?


Well let me introduce you to his wife.  Her name is Athaliah and she is known by her parents.  This girl is the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.  Ahab was king of Israel and was more wicked than every king before him!  This is one bad dude.  He was also married to Jezebel, who was a very deceitful, conniving, evil woman herself.  1 Kings 18:19 mentions how all the prophets of Baal and the Asherah (the false gods and idols of the day) ate at Jezebel’s table.  To sum up this couple’s life: “Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife incited him.” (1 Kings 21:25)  Can you imagine growing up in this home?


It is Ahab & Jezebel’s daughter who marries Jehoram and clearly she had a significant influence on him.  ”Jehoram walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab did (for Ahab’s daughter was his wife), and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.”  This same story is written in 2 Kings 8:18: “Jehoram walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab became his wife; and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.”  This one woman had more influence on her husband than his father and grandfather.


In the very next chapter of 2 Chronicles we see her continue to have an affect on her family.  Once her husband, King Jehoram dies, her son Ahaziah becomes king.  And what does it say of Ahaziah? “He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly.  He did evil in the sight of the Lord like the house of Ahab.” (22:3-4)


As I read these chapters this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the incredibly powerful impact this one woman had on her husband and son.  Judah went from having good kings that trusted in the Lord and sought Him with all their heart to wicked kings that did evil in His sight so quickly.  And it is all because of the influence of one woman.


This has lead me to ask this question: what kind of influence am I having on my family?  I might not be causing the same kind of great evil in my family as Athaliah caused hers, but I still need to evaluate how I am…….  Do I criticize my husband and cause him to shrink into passivity?  Or do I encourage him and strengthen him to step up into his God-given leadership positions with confidence?  Do I have an complaining and woe-is-me attitude that makes my home a sorrowful place to be?  Or do I have a grateful and cheerful heart that brings joy to our home?  Do I treat my daughter like she is an inconvenience to my day and a burden?  Or like she is a blessing and a wonderful gift to be celebrated and enjoyed?


I might not be seeking to cause evil and wickedness in my family, but I do have an influence.  And I believe my influence can be just as powerful and long lasting in my family as Athaliah’s was in hers.  And I pray that God will continue to grow me into a woman whose family is blessed and better off because of her.

List-focused vs Jesus-focused

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Thanks to those of you who have already responded to my last post, Back to the Basics. This is a response to one of the comments on that blog. Someone asked “How exactly do you intend to shift your focus from your to do list to Jesus? What do you intend to do differently?” Thanks for responding and that is a great question!

I first want to mention that I don’t think to-do lists are bad in and of themselves. I think writing out a list of things that need to get done is a helpful tool and very useful. I don’t think I will ever stop doing that as a way to stay organized and on task. But like any good thing can, my to-do lists often take the place of Jesus in my life.

It sounds funny to think I could make a to-do list an idol in my life, but it happens regularly. Here are some lyrics from the song “Clear the Stage” by a friend of ours, Ross King:

Anything I put before my God is an idol.
Anything I want with all my heart is an idol.
Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol.
Anything that I give all my love is an idol.
We must not worship something that’s not even worth it.
Clear the stage and make some space for the one who deserves it.


(Wow do I love that song!) “Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol…” Often that is all I am thinking about in a day: what’s next on my to do list. How can I get more done? When is Lively going to sleep so I can get things 2,3, and 5 done on my list. I will choose to be productive rather than sit with God. And I often long to get everything done way more than I long to get to know God more. Unfortunately, all these things point to my list being an idol in my life.

This doesn’t mean I can’t ever make a list ever again. Jimmy has also been an idol in my life, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be married to him. It just means I have to always to make sure that God is still on the throne of my life and my number one priority because everything else is always trying to take His place.

So, how does a list-a-holic keep Jesus the focus of her day? Before I write out some practical ways that I do this, I wanted to mention that first and foremost it is a heart attitude that keeps Jesus central, not a step-by-step program.

The story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 is the best picture of what it looks like to be focused on Jesus rather than focused on doing. Mary is sitting and listening to Jesus and Martha is busy getting her home ready for Jesus. Martha had great intentions in all her busyness, but the Bible says she was “distracted.” Distracted from what? From Jesus! But Mary had her whole attention on Him and was resting at His feet. The question for list-a-holics like me is always this: “Well then, does that mean I sit around and do nothing all day but pray and read the Bible? Practically I can’t do that. There are actually things that have to get done.”

The book “Grace Walk” by Steve McVey gave me great insight into this. Here is a quote from the book:

Jesus could have said to Martha, “Now calm down. What you are doing is good, but what Mary is doing is important too. Both serving and resting have their proper place. Martha, you need to learn balance.” Yet that isn’t what He said. Instead, He said, “But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” How many things? One thing is needed–resting in Him. Does this statement minimize the importance of serving Jesus? Not at all. How do you suppose Mary would have responded if Jesus had asked her to bring Him a glass of water? She would have immediately have spring into action. On the other hand, if He had asked Martha for a glass of water, she might not have even heard Him because she was too busy making His bed–and He wasn’t even sleepy! Do you see the point? Resting in Christ is the sole responsibility of the Christian. Everything else flows out of that.

The point is this: when you choose to daily keep your focus on Jesus, He will clearly lead you in everything else. And instead of wasting your time on frivolous things that won’t matter in the end, you will spend all your time on important things that do matter because you are being directed by Jesus. I don’t want to be so distracted with my to-do list that I can’t hear the direction Jesus is giving me. I want to rest in Him and in His peace, knowing that as I do that, He will help me accomplish everything that actually needs to get done. It might not be everything I wanted to get done, but it will be exactly what He wanted for me that day. And after all, Jesus knows way better than me the best way to spend my day.

So in light of that, here are a few things that I do to try and stay seated at Jesus’s feet all day and keep myself from being a frantic Martha:

SET APART TIME WITH GOD AND HIS WORD FIRST
This is by far the most important thing for me. If I just start my day doing, doing, doing, it will be 4pm before I know it and I haven’t thought of God once. But if I dedicate some time for reading my Bible and journaling in the first part of my day, even if only for 15 minutes, that makes a huge difference. This time is a refocusing time. Every morning I wake up with my default set on myself and the things of this world, which is a product of living with indwelling sin and in a world that doesn’t revolve around Jesus. So I have to intentionally change my default setting in my mind by refocusing on more eternal things that I can’t see. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corin 4:18) It is very unnatural to focus on things that are unseen. It doesn’t happen by accident, it takes effort. That’s why it’s so important for me to have time to refocus my mind on my unseen God. Reading the Bible is key because it is 100% truth (2 Tim 3:16) that I can count it. It is also living and active (Heb 4:12) and gives me ammunition for the day to fight off things that threaten to take my focus off of Jesus. Then spending time communicating with God through writing helps me to not just gain head knowledge but communicate with Him about what is on my heart and mind and ask for help in those situations.

Side note: Being a mom now has caused me to have to rethink when I spend my time with God. My days often start out with a crying baby that needs my attention which doesn’t always allow for the very first part of my day to be dedicated to reading the Bible. So I have been setting apart her morning nap time for my time with God. It is still pretty early in the day and allows me some time to myself to really refocus and connect with God. Whatever your situation is, if it is unreasonable for you to spend the first part of your day in the Bible, get creative and find a solution that works for you. Do anything you can that helps to refocus and reset your default to Jesus instead of self in the early part of your day.

STOP AND PRAY
I need little check-points throughout my day to help me keep my focus on Jesus. It could be an alarm on my phone that just reminds me to spend 3-5 minutes reconnected with God or singing a worship song or re-reading a favorite verse from what I read that morning. It’s amazing how 2 or 3 check-points in a day keep my eyes fixed on Him. It is also important for me to pray about things as they are happening. Just having an attitude of prayer about all the menial tasks in my day reminds me that life is ultimately about sitting and listening to Jesus as He directs my day.

USING MY SCHEDULE TO MY ADVANTAGE
Currently, I am still nursing my 8 month old daughter. This means that there are times in my day when I am sitting in silence in her room nursing her. I will often use this time to my advantage to pray for others, sing worship songs to myself, or memorize scripture. It is built in down time in my day that I can use! Maybe for you it is a morning and evening commute you can use to stay focused on Jesus. Listen to worship music or a Christian podcast while you shower and get ready. Again find creative ways to use time that is already built in to your schedule.

PODCASTS: REVIVE OUR HEARTS
This is a personal favorite of mine. While doing a task that is somewhat mindless in my day (laundry, dishes, unpacking boxes, etc), I will listen to my favorite podcast, Revive Our Hearts. These are 28 minute episodes of a radio program run by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Not only are they fun to listen to, but give me spiritual food for thought in my day. It is another tool for keeping my focus in the right place. There are many great podcasts out there and radio programs that could serve this function, and they are all free!

WRITING MY TO DO LISTS IN MY JOURNAL
I have started doing this in the last few months. Instead of using a separate piece of paper for my lists, I will write them in my prayer journal. This way, I can have an attitude of prayer when trying to decide how to spend my day. I can also write out everything I think needs to get done or that I want to do, and then ask God what He thinks is and isn’t important. I admit, I don’t hear a voice from heaven saying do this and don’t do that. But doing this has definitely given me more sensitivity to God’s Spirit inside me to be more discerning about how I should spend my day. It also helps me to hold my list more loosely knowing that God might have other plans for me that day.

I would love to hear what you do to keep Jesus your focus throughout the day. Feel free to add your comment to this post and let me and everyone else know. Here’s to keeping Jesus our focus today! Nothing else is more important!

Lessons in Sleeplessness

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Teething + stuffy nose + out of town = one very unhappy baby


This is the equation that plagued me last week. Our poor little girl had her first cold and boy was it rough! For about 5 nights in a row, I was up almost every hour trying to get her back to sleep because she couldn’t breathe. The frustration followed into the next day because our sick baby was now a tired, sick baby. Then top that off with constant pain from teething and the fact that we are not at home with all her regular toys and Baby Einstein DVDs…. And wow. I felt like I was just trying to make it through one hour at a time.

It’s amazing what a lack of sleep over multiple days does to you. I had checked-out emotionally and spiritually. Discouragement began to set in as I wondered if this was ever going to end. As I drove around Nashville waiting to pick Jimmy up from a writing appointment, I noticed this license plate in front of me. It read: 2COR610. An acute awareness of God’s sovereignty causes me to take these “coincidences” very personally as if God were sending me a message to read 2 Corinthians 6:10. Though it didn’t mean much to me as I quickly glanced at it in my car, I decided it was worth a more in depth look later.

Thankfully, Lively soon fell asleep in the car seat as I drove giving me a precious hour and a half of time to myself. I found a coffee shop and claimed the small nook in the back as my own to sit with this chapter of the Bible and a much needed cup of caffeine… I mean coffee. I began reading from earlier in the chapter: “But in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger…” Wait a second!! “in sleeplessness” Those words were balm to my soul. The moment I read them my eyes filled with tears as God’s Word ministered to my soul. In just a split second God spoke so many things to my heart.

First, just seeing the word sleeplessness let me know that God was aware of my situation. Sometimes just to know that He sees me and knows what I am going through brings such comfort. Then, sleeplessness is listed next to imprisonments, beatings, and hunger to name a few! In this I felt like my struggle became legitimate, that it is truly difficult to function without sleep. In the same way our bodies need food to function, they also need sleep to function. Finally, the main point of this whole passage is that even in sleeplessness I am to commend myself as a servant of God. What renewed purpose this gave me to know that I am to serve God in my sleeplessness. Not just get through it, but serve God through it.

I glanced down at the little feet sticking out of the car seat next to me. This little girl was not the burden or inconvenience that she seemed to be this past week, but a blessing that I had the honor of caring for as my service to God. I am to be HIS SERVANT even in sleeplessness.

Oh the Bible! How I love it! It’s pages always bringing such refreshment and renewal to my soul. It is like a never-ending fountain, allowing me to discover new mysteries each time I open it. Wherever you are at today, find time to sit with God in His Word. You might not be a new mom dealing with sleepless nights, but there is fresh wisdom, comfort, and encouragement for every situation in the pages of this precious book.

“How sweet are Your words to my taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
Psalm 119:103